Saturday, August 29, 2009

Now THIS Is Love

A couple months ago, I blogged about showing love. I'd asked Boy #1 how he knows his Mom loves him and his answer was, "Because she takes me fishing."

I thought of that at 6:15 this morning as I sped across a lake, cool -- no, make that cold -- mist spraying in my face. It was the last morning of our Up North vacation and I was huddled inside two sweatshirts and a jacket, sitting on a not-quite-wet-yet-towel in a motorboat piloted by my 11-year-old son. Trust me when I say this is not how I would normally choose to spend a morning.

By nature, I am more of a night person. By nature, I am more of an indoors kind of girl. By nature, I will choose my warm bed and a book over almost anything.

But there I was, out on the lake, wind whipping at my back, prepared to spend one-and-a-half hours casting lures into a lake that hadn't yielded anything to me but weeds (and an excellent encounter with a loon.) Why? Because I love my son and my son loves fishing.

It was not the morning he wanted it to be. He was dying to catch a musky, the elusive fish of 10,000 casts that had eluded him all week. He never did catch a musky -- but I caught my very first Northern, an 18 1/2 inch fish that was the biggest fish I'd ever caught. (It was also the first fish I've ever held. Boy, are those things slippery!)

I never would have caught that fish without my son. He guided me to the site, put on the bait and showed me how to cast and retrieve my lure. He also netted the fish, removed the hook and helped me release it safely into the water.

Most importantly, though, he got me out on the water. Never in a thousand years would I have seen the mist over the lake at sunrise, or felt the strength of a fish at the end of my line, if not for my son. If not for my son -- my sons -- my world would be a much poorer place, in so many ways.

3 comments:

Oh I love that you were out doing that with him and I am actually quite jealous! I love being outdoors in the morning; it is so peaceful and so many people miss out on it. Glad to see you are back. I am in fleece head to toe, summer is a memory for us here in Vermont!

How have my sons expanded my world? Oh, my goodness, that world is too big to begin to use a comment form to write about. What a wonderful story you've shared -- I'm grateful for my boys as well -- hard to believe that a girly-girl like me has two of them!

Andrea -- Summer seems to have been a blink here too. We were actually blessed with very good weather up North (it's always a toss-up, whether to pack more T-shirts or more sweatshirts), until the last day. Unfortunately, the cool weather seems to have followed us home. It's 49 here this morning!

Elizabeth -- I never thought of myself as a girly-girl, but since having boys, I've realized what a girly-girl I am. Thanks to them, though, I'm also embracing my boy side!